Support for shareholder resolution on methane emissions

8 May 2018

We expect companies engaged in activities with large greenhouse gas emissions, including methane emissions, to have a strategy for the transition to a low-emission energy system and a framework to monitor and report on emissions.

We will support the shareholder resolution asking for a report reviewing Kinder Morgan’s policies, actions and plans to measure, monitor, mitigate, disclose and set quantitative reduction targets for methane emissions from all operations, including storage and transportation. The resolution will be voted on during the Annual General Meeting on 9 May.

“Around a decade ago we formulated our climate change expectations to the companies we are invested in. With our support for this proposal, we emphasise that our expectations also cover methane emissions", says Chief Corporate Governance Officer Carine Smith Ihenacho.

Methane is the second largest contributor to human climate greenhouse gas emissions after CO2. According to a study by IPCC1, methane has a shorter lifetime than CO2 in the atmosphere, but has an effect on global warming that is about 25 times worse than CO2 over a 100-year time horizon.